President Abdullahi Yusuf after a swearing-in ceremony in Nairobi, Kenya.
Radu Sigheti/Reuters

October, 2004

Transitional Federal Government Formed

Somalia’s internationally backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), comprising representatives of the country’s largest clans, is formed in exile in Nairobi. Abdullahi Yusuf is elected president of the interim body.

2006

Al-Shabab fighters seize the capital.
Shabelle Media/Reuters

June, 2006

Mogadishu Falls

Backed by al-Shabab militants, the ICU wrests control of Mogadishu after clashing with a coalition of warlords.

Ethiopian troops ride on a military truck in Mogadishu.
Sahal Abdulle/Reuters

The United Nations approves a regional peacekeeping force known as the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to support the TFG in its battle against al-Shabab.

2008

Al-Shabab fighters march on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
Mowliid Ibdi/Reuters

February, 2008

U.S. Designates al-Shabab Terrorists

The U.S. State Department designates al-Shabab a foreign terrorist organization, blocking anyone in the United States from providing financial support to the group.

2009

Ethiopian troops as they leave Mogadishu.
Ismail Taxta/Reuters

January 13, 2009

Ethiopia Pulls Out

Ethiopian troops withdraw from Somalia after a series of setbacks and are replaced by AMISOM forces. The country does not redeploy troops to Somalia until 2014, when it becomes a contributor to the regional force.

2010

A Ugandan man waits to learn the fate of victims of the bomb blasts in Kampala.
Xavier Toya/Reuters

Backed by local Somali forces, Kenyan troops sweep into Kismayo, ousting al-Shabab from its last major stronghold and cutting off a major source of the militant group’s funding.

2013

Clinton shakes hands with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the State Department.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

January 17, 2013

A New Beginning

The United States recognizes the government of Somalia after a hiatus of more than twenty years. “There is still a long way to go and many challenges to confront, but we have seen a new foundation for that better future being laid,” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

A police officer secures an area inside the Westgate Shopping Center, where al-Shabab gunmen went on a shooting spree.
Siegfried Modola/Reuters

September 21 – 24, 2013

Terror in Nairobi

In a multiday raid on a Nairobi mall, al-Shabab militants kill sixty-seven people. It is the deadliest terrorist attack in Kenya in fifteen years.

An AMISOM soldier keeps guard on top of an armored vehicle in Mogadishu.
Siegfried Modola/Reuters

December, 2013

U.S. Deploys Ground Troops

The U.S. military sends a small team of advisors to Mogadishu to assist AMISOM forces. It is the first U.S. deployment since eighteen soldiers were killed in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.

Ahmed Umar, also known as Abu Ubaidah, becomes al-Shabab’s leader after Ahmed Abdi Godane, one of the group’s founders, is killed in a U.S. air strike.

Somali forces make their way to Barawe during the second phase of Operation Indian Ocean.
Feisal Omar/Reuters

October 5, 2014

Port City Liberated

Somali and AMISOM troops retake the southern coastal city of Barawe nearly six years after al-Shabab gained control of the area.

2015

Students are evacuated from Garissa University College.
Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images

April 2, 2015

Kenya Again Under Attack

Al-Shabab militants in central Kenya kill 148 people at Garissa University College. The fifteen-hour siege, in which gunmen hold more than seven hundred students hostage, exceeds the 2013 mall raid as the group’s deadliest attack in the country.

Former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed wins the presidency. The government hails the election as the final step in its decades-long path toward effective central governance, but international observers criticize the election as corrupt.

Civilians carry the dead body of an unidentified man from the scene of an explosion in Mogadishu.
Feisal Omar/Reuters

October 15, 2017

Mogadishu Bombings

In Somalia’s deadliest terrorist attack, truck bombings in the capital city kill more than five hundred people and injure another three hundred. Al-Shabab is widely believed to be behind the attack, though it does not claim responsibility. Two weeks later, Shabab militants kill at least twenty-nine during a siege on a hotel in Mogadishu; the dead include senior government and police officials.

Al-Shabab militants patrol southern Mogadishu.
Feisal Omar/Reuters

November 21, 2017

U.S. Escalates Strikes

More than one hundred militants affiliated with al-Shabab are killed in a single U.S. air strike northwest of Mogadishu, according to the Pentagon. The strike is one of more than two dozen in Somalia authorized by the Trump administration in its first year.

The UN Security Council approves the withdrawal of a thousand AMISOM troops by the end of 2017, the first time it has cut peacekeeper numbers in Somalia, as part of a transition of security responsibilities to the Somali government. In July 2018, it votes to delay further reductions until 2019.

Al-Shabab claims responsibility for a deadly siege at a Nairobi luxury hotel complex. At least fourteen people are killed and hundreds of civilians trapped amid an hours-long standoff between gunmen and security forces.